On March 1st in France, immigrants were encouraged to stay at home, protest, and spend nothing as a nationwide protest against the country’s latent problems with immigration and national identity.

Peggy Derder, Nadir Dendoune and Nadia Lamarkbi, three French professionals in their thirties, hit upon the idea of la journée sans immigrés, or the day without immigrants, after years of endless police checks and discrimination. The trio were encouraging anyone who is an immigrant, of immigrant origin, or who feels solidarity with immigrants and wanted to contest their treatment to take these three simple measures for just one day. In a political system where there are no black or Arab representatives, despite the fact that these minorities make up 10% of the population, people of immigrant origin wanted to make their invisibility and silence symbolically evident in workplaces around France.

Their aim was to make their compatriots see how different their country would look and sound if France’s minorities did not exist. The demonstration also sought to highlight the economic contribution that minorities make, and the range of industries they operate within France. Demonstrators were hoping to empty offices, stop public transport and close stores. The idea quickly spread and similar demonstrations were seen in Spain, Italy, and Greece.

In Orléans, one hour south of Paris, protesters from region gathered in front of the mairie (mayor’s office). Their leader, Sabrina Kecheroud, said:

“We intend to protest against the growing stigmatization of immigration in the discourse of our political elites, when in reality immigration enriches our country. March 1st was not chosen at random. It is the anniversary of a law that began selective immigration into France. We think racism is still a problem in France. Otherwise how could a minister (Brice Hortefeux, then Minister of Immigration and National Identity) say what he did last summer, with no action being taken against him?”

M Hortefeux was caught on video by Le Monde newspaper saying of immigrants “When there is only one, it’s okay. It’s when there are many that problems begin”.

The journée sans immigrés was also politically apt given that a UMP (Conservative) mayor recently called a black socialist candidate, Ali Soumaré, a “délinquant multirécidiviste chevronné” (a seasoned and habitual criminal-delinquent.)

M. Soumaré spent a few months in prison for a stealing a car when he was in his late teens, and was later charged with driving without a licence. A more recent charge has yet to come to court. However, these offences mostly took place over a decade ago, and he has assured the public that he has left his criminal behaviour behind in order to help his community progress. M Soumaré is now the great hope for the politically unrepresented minorities of France and, on a personal level, in his neighbourhood. The rising star comes from the Val d’Oise, a struggling Parisian suburb close to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, north of the city.

The problem of ingrained racism in French politics is well known. The current President, Nicolas Sarkozy, said memorably in 2005:
“quand je dis qu’il faut les nettoyer au Karcher, cela veut dire qu’il faut les nettoyer en profondeur.”
“When I say that we must clean them out [immigrants] with Karcher (a high pressure hose), I mean to say that we must really clean them out properly”. M. Sarkozy is himself of Hungarian origin.

The journée sans immigrés allowed French people to see how integral immigrants have become to their nation, and what would be lost if they, and their French born descendants, were not a part of France’s ethnic landscape.

Mme Kecheroud expressed her hope to build on the success of the first demonstration in the run up to a repeat next year:

“We are now taking stock after the success of our first “Day Without Immigrants.” We are now intending to go further with our new perspective, in particular through the forthcoming creation of a vigilance committee. But we will be sure to do our best again to continue this great event next year. Immigration is badly considered and not seen as it really is: an asset. A large proportion of France, and of Europe relies on it.”

On March 1st, the land of supposed liberté, égalité and fraternité was forced to listen up to a resounding cry of accusation from its minorities. It can only be hoped it will take heed.

Dave, it definitely was, yes! I think there’s a point to be made about modern levels of immigration being comparable to historic ones which created similar levels of panic and outrage at the time but which now are viewed very differently. One example is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot#Britain_and_Ireland – possibly lucky that the Daily Mail wasn’t around at the time to lead with ‘they come over here and steal our weaving industry’?

It really took off in Italy too, which has a much more ingrained racism problem than France. Milan had a significant group of protesters.

Here there were hundreds of people in front of mairies across the country between 12pm and 2 pm (and French people don’t give up lunch for nothing) The largest demos were in Paris, Marseille and Toulouse.

The group want to do the same thing next year, and a protest against the National Front is also planned for 8th march.

I think we should make a bigger deal about latter-generation migrants than we do. They provide much-needed examples of our diverse cultural and economic histories, but are conveniently ignored for the purposes of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media.

It would be interesting to discover what exactly separates a job-stealing NHS-stressing ‘Bad’ immigrant from a culture-enriching wealth-creating ‘Good’ immigrant.

I guess what I was looking for was less the normal socialist show’s of solidarity, the “evidence” of success that is nothing more than a PR exercise, and a show of what the effects were.

I’m a big supporter of uncontrolled immigration, so this event is of real interest to me…but the question is not whether or not immigrants made a big scene by staging a protest or gathering, but how services were affected, how many businesses had to struggle by, how the health service faired, etc.

What were the actual effects of the demonstration? For a movement that wanted to display how vital immigration is to everyday French life I’m surprised by the lack of detail in to how much it actually effected that everyday life.

Bearing in mind that many asylum seekers are in fact university educated & in professional jobs in their countries of origin. They didn’t chuck all that up for a life on benefits courtesy of the restrictions a “Labour” government imposed on their work, but that’s what happens.

As it happens I am not an open borders type, I just think if we are going to have immigrants living here we might as well have them putting their abilities to good use.

While I fully support the idea of this day – I just felt a bit of a cringe as I imagined that video being shown on the French national news.
You know what many people would think.
That how ‘of course’ France would manage well enough without those people.

I have long had this fantasy. With millions of true-born Brits reviling immigrants and blaming incomers for everything – unemployment, poor public services, crime, violence, social unease, widespread rape even – why not have an annual day called “Immigrants Out”.

We who are thus pilloried, and our progeny, previous arrivals and their descendents too, should put down tools, shut up shop and march in our best clothes to show the many unappreciative citizens just what we do. We could pick the birthday of Mary Seacole, the Jamaican who nursed our soldiers in the Crimean War.

It could be argued that a society that isn’t prepared to do its own menial jobs is a society out of kilter.

It would be interesting to discover what exactly separates a job-stealing NHS-stressing ‘Bad’ immigrant from a culture-enriching wealth-creating ‘Good’ immigrant.

Well, I may be being overly cynical here, but I’m pretty sure that my (white) Canadian-born maternal grandfather falls into the latter category, as do all the (white) Americans and Australians… Whereas the former category mainly contains people with darker skin tones or who don’t speak English as a first language.

The irony is that my maternal grandfather was a terrible racist and lifelong Express reader, who’d be lapping up all this anti-immigrant stuff if he were still alive. I quite clearly remember my grandmother shouting “But you’re an immigrant!” at him one day when he was going on about it – he was somewhat nonplussed by that…

Indeed it is damon but I fear it will not be the case, these forum attracts, for some reason unknown to me, those on the far-right who like to expound racist views but do not wish to be called racist.

Back to the topic at hand, this is a great idea and I hope to see something similar in the UK but ti really needs many, many people to do this because the UK has a rich history of immigration making it what it is, it would reach deep, far and wide.

Is that particular poll one you have researched yourself as less representative?
Or is it just that you don’t agree with it’s findings and are working back from there?

Anyway, I threw that 1 poll in to make the point that cultures are different.
(I’m married to a foreigner myself.)
From where I stand, that seems like such an obviously true statement.

Maybe we find common ground on that, though we my differ on other areas?

> by pretending you’ve been coincidentally following gang rape surveys from other countries.

I don’t get your point.
The thread is about immigrants in France.
A while back I saw a TV documentary about gang-rape among some of those communitites in France.
Why am I not allowed to mention what comes to mind?

Lastly, you didn’t give your view on my question: “I wonder if a march about that, would have garnered more support from the wider french community?”

Au contraire, all that poll proves is that young men of all colours will vote for stupid things, which proves similarity more than difference. You’re using that poll as evidence of difference, yet the poll assumes this difference as a baseline without actually examining it while also using wording that describes the culture (‘honour’) rather than the practice (‘retaliation’). It’s not like Radio 1 listeners get asked stuff this heavy. From where I stand, I’m baffled at your credulity regarding ‘obvious statements’, and wonder if maybe you should sit down and think hard about other stuff you think is ‘obvious’.

This thread isn’t actually about French immigrants. If you’d care to take a look at the bigger picture, it’s about a Europe-wide phenomenon of relying on immigrant workers while simultaneously wishing they weren’t (that the French happened to highlight first).

Until you say which documentary this was, so I can look it up myself, I’ll be within my rights to assume that it was a biased old crock o’ nonsense. If you disagree, you’ll have to demonstrate why, and if you think that’s an unreasonable thing to ask then you can’t have watched very many documentaries in great detail.

That’s just the way it is, and this isn’t even mentioning the fact that migrant gang rape is a distraction you’ve introduced which has basically nothing to do with what we’re discussing. It’s like you’re in a maths lesson, asking everyone questions about geography, and saying their unwillingness to answer shows how thick they are. They’d be within rights to tell you to get out, same as posters above have been doing.

Lastly, you phrased the question in such a way that I, and presumably everyone else, figured it was a rhetorical device. I see such phrasing in use on comment boards every day, and tend to tune it out.

In this particular case, there is in fact an ‘obvious statement’ to be made, which is: No, of course fewer people will march against migrant community gang rape, despite it being worthy of attention, because it doesn’t affect anywhere near as many people in anywhere near as universal a set of circumstances. Someone angrier than me would question why you even thought it a salient point to make in this kind of discussion unless your intention is to start a flame war.

Just Visiting – please do not breach LC editorial policy which states that mass immigration poses no problems and that any problems which do arise (which they don’t, you understand) are the result only of racism.

I thought he just pointed out the pretty obvious fact that immigration does bring with it some unattractive cultural practises which need to be dealt with.
(But often aren’t, through a combination of left-wing racism – that of low expectations/cultural relativism – and fear of being called racist.)

Immigrants are frequently different from us. Hence the fashionable term “diversity”.
Mostly this is to be welcomed. But often it is not.

I am just quoting Sunny and what he described you as, which I think is fair. What what dismiss as ad hominem, I hink you’ll find is fact and as you’ve come to this thread and offered nothing, there is nothing to debate apart from you and your motives.

Your initial comment at 32 is sarcastic, inaccurate and in defence of someone propagating racist ideas, as is always the way with these threads on immigration and the BNP, they attract racists.

On homophobia (I’m gay myself fwiw), I don’t know how many “English” – using your word – institutions in an area (Tower Hamlets) where homophobic attacks have markedly increased have held a “spot the fag” talk recently…

cjcjcjcjjc is presenting no arguments, he came into the thread to defend a racist and proffered nothing else. That makes him foolish and you didn’t understand what I meant by ‘pick your sides better’ which is fair enough as I didn’t think you’d be putting into the spotlight and if you want it to get back on topic, don’t drag it off by over analysis, yeah? Yeah!

Lets at least get some proper insults here people, if that’s all we’re going to do.

Starting point, Daniel/cjcjc, you are:

A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lilly-livered, action-taking whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou denyest the least syllable of thy addition.

He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he–and many more of the same bevy that I
know the dressy age dotes on–only got the tune of
the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
yeasty collection, which carries them through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Seriously though, great part, great fun, reminds me rather of that senior Doctor in the Green Wing, so verbose but never gets anywhere then, unfortunately stabbed behind an arras. I’m teaching Hamlet at the moment to my acting students, what a great and profoundly wonderful play that is.

Anyway, we have drifted into a delightful off-topic area which I hope we could remain in.

Right wing trolls like cjcjc, Tim J, damon, Just Visiting and Tim Worstall are killing this site. They just endlessly obfuscate and are clearly not interested in the LibCon mission, which is not to become a talking shop for saddo net nerds to endlessly argue over whether this or that policy meets their right-wing purity test, but to build a left-liberal movement.

Why should any lefties bother to comment on this site, when all they get is a bunch of contrarian crap from people who either have nothing better to do or are so lame they get some pathetic joy out of derailing every thread with their racist lies.

I know, I’m just saying we should be addressing problems with our native culture, before we start obsessing about the darker aspects of foreign cultures.

The reason white people get more bothered about ‘honour’ killings is because it’s a non-controversial easily-identifiable evil that fits neatly into soundbites, compared to other more relevant stuff that requires patience and respect to deal with. It’s no more or less meritous than anything else.

Re: 45

Stones, glass houses, you know how it goes. I agree with you politically on lots of things, and if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be bothered that your arse is showing.

Nor am I pinning homophobia on any one community, merely pointing out that (as the survey evidence suggests) Muslims unfortunately appear currently (no reason to expect that not to change) to be more homophobic than the UK on average.

Please excuse me if I don’t feel too well disposed to “spot the fag” talks held at institutions which receive large amounts of public money.

Sorry, your personal experience may be that but I work for Stonewall now and then, as well as other LGBT agencies and I can assure you homophobia is no more prevalent in Muslim communities than it is in others, it is a deep-set prejudice that has not gone away, no matter what you might think because I’ve had the honour fo working with young members of the LGBT community who can attest to homophobias grubby reach to all parts of society still.

Yes, it is getting better but their is still much ignorance and idiocy to be combatted, just as there is with regards to race.

And cjcjcjcjc, I’m sure you’d give short shrift to any ‘Gay Plague’ loons, that usually go hand in hand with such bigots, so do the same to those that look to pin imagined woes on immigrants, non-whites or the dreaded non-indiginous.

I’d say the use of public money to indulge religious groups, regardless of actual demonstrated virtue, is a pretty endemic flaw in English government culture. It’s horrible regardless of whether the money goes to ignorant Muslims or ignorant Christians, and it demonstrates how little actual thinking Blair did as PM.

You are doing a troll classic, ducking the issue here and shouting LOOK OVER THERE! LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE DOING!

Homophobia, as I pointed out at length in 57, is not a Muslim only problem and in towing the line of argument you are, you’re starting to take up racist positions and don’t forget, racial bigots are usually homophobic ones as well, the BNP have no time for homosexuality.

Bit like the Lindsay German/SWP line when some brighter sparks pointed out that Respect contained no small number of rather, ahem, “conservative” religious bigots, said that gay rights should not be a “shibboleth”, and that they should worry about that later.

Sorry. If London’s most influential mosque hosts a homophobic bigot, and no-one calls them on it – including Stonewall whose large monthly standing order I am about to cancel – then I am going to be f*cking pissed off.

Unfortunately the fact that you are even having to argue the toss with cjcjc and the other bigots shows that they have in fact succeeded in their sadsack quest to derail every thread with nonsense!

LibCon was a nice idea whilst it lasted but it’s become too laden-down with trolls, and actual lefty-liberals like DHG and yourself have to spend far too much time simply arguing on first principles with the bigots like cjcjc.

Isn’t it sad that gay Tories like cjcjc and Iain Dale have to project their persecution into hatred of Muslims? Sad times.

I’d say the troll quotient is almost as high as the ZaNuLieBour crowd infesting LabourList! LibCon won’t achieve much beyond being a talking shop as long as it’s mainly cjcjc etc who keep these threads going.

Tell me what Leviticus says about homosexuality. It’s still in the Bible, and they haven’t taken it out. I’m sure there are plenty of homophobic comments made in churches when others are seemingly not around to hear. I was at an event in a community hall adjacent to a church on Sunday morning some time ago, and I could clearly hear the preacher rant on about the “abominations” of sexual “perversion.”

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.(Leviticus 18:22)
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.(Leviticus 20:13)

Good grief, you are pushing this point to its very limits, plenty of churches in the US have anti-gay sermons, the Catholic church is, because it is based on the bible, intrinsically homophobic, or are you denying that, as you twist and turn into such shapes you have become quite ridiculous.

@DHG then why bother with LibCon at all? It must frustrate Sunny to no end to have the trolls like cuntjcuntjcunt et al infest each thread. I don’t see what LC is achieving, aside from having some good original posts, based on the comments culture.

DHG: comments seem to add very little. The pieces, by the likes of Sunny, Paul Sagar, Don P, Unity, and so on, are what makes LibCon good. It is of course ironic that I’m writing a comment to make this point about comments!

The F Word doesn’t have comments sections on its articles – I think instead it asks people to write their own articles if they actually want to respond constructively to the articles. If you have written a 500-word article about a complex topic, for some twat to come along and go nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah in one sentence and then turn your debate into shit.. well, that’s not exactly a “movement”, let alone a movement with a future.

comedy genius

Thank you, thank you! It is a lot cleverer than “Look at the Muslims, they hate gays!”

Points about comments are noted. We want to have lively debates with people who don’t always share the liberal-left’s views on some issues (and it can help us to refine and develop our arguments to win people over), but I agree that having to debate everything from first principles is really tedious and gets in the way of having more interesting discussions.

As the site is run by volunteers who have more productive things to do than to police every single comment, it’s something we’ll be looking at as part of the site’s redesign in April. But please don’t go away, I’m going to try some short term fixes over the next couple of weeks which might help.

That’s what I personally think too, there’s no useful distinction to be made.

Re: 66

I don’t feel like I’m arguing the toss at all. I do feel like it’s a good mental exercise to engage with nonsense-posts like Just Visiting’s, and figure out just why they wind me up. If I can understand it, maybe I can master it.

Come ooooon. So British muslims hate gays, is that really so controversial? Lots of British whites hate gays too. All sorts of British people hate gays. Even some British gays hate gays.

There’s easier, more effective and more methodical ways to debate the rigor of a religiously-targeted morality survey than to just call whoever brings it up a mouthpiece for the Evil Right. Stats 101 isn’t my job, mind.

Well, interesting chain of reactions here. Less about immigration than spot the racist. Problem with racists is that they are usually very obviously so. Let’s discuss the idea of immigration and its effects pros and cons… without saying immigrants = gang rapists but equally without saying if you say this does happen you are automatically a racist. Balance…

without saying if you say this does happen you are automatically a racist

Well, those who point it out, out of context and in attempt to obfuscate, usually have at the very least racist sympathies. That doesnt mean you cant point it out, of course you can, but we should examine the motives of those who cite statistics and poll results completely out of context!

Untrue. If you are white, I suggest you google the phrase ‘Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. It simply isn’t possible to join in an informed discussion of racism without understanding where privilege comes into it.

I gave up trying to work out what you think. What you SAID, however, was that all asians are different because some of them like murder and rape. You also forgot to mention why that was relevant in the first place.

[…] article I read today over on Liberal Conspiracy regarding a day of action in France called ‘a day without immigrants‘ has special poignancy. The campaign encouraged: anyone who is an immigrant, of immigrant […]